Chapter 1305 - 491: Qin Miao’s Bitter Regret
After the celebration ended, the live director also announced the final race standings and scores for today’s race:
P1: Verstappen +25
P2: Leclerc +18
P3: Perez +15
P4: Sainz +12
P5: Norris +11 (fastest lap)
P6: O’Kang +8
P7: Stroll +6
P8: Ricardo +4
P9: Vettel +2
P10: Zhou Guanyu +1
Even though the retirement of both Mercedes drivers isn’t exactly a massive event that affects everyone.
Their retirement truly allowed many drivers to achieve good results in the year’s final race.
The most obvious beneficiary is the soon-to-retire Vettel.
If both Qin Miao and Hamilton hadn’t retired today, the four-time champion would not have secured even a single point in his career’s last race.
However, with the retirement of Qin Miao and Hamilton, Vettel snatched two points, giving a rather perfect conclusion to his career’s final race.
The other beneficiary is Zhou Guanyu.
Zhou Guanyu clearly feels the struggle of the Alfa Romeo car’s performance in the second half of the season.
Before today’s race began, Zhou Guanyu vaguely sensed that under normal circumstances, he probably wouldn’t score any points.
But with Hamilton’s retirement, a point surprisingly and happily fell into Zhou Guanyu’s lap.
As for Leclerc, there’s not much to say; he effortlessly clinched a podium while maintaining his third place in the annual driver standings.
Everyone at Ferrari, except Binotto, was grinning from ear to ear.
The happiest ones are undoubtedly Perez and Red Bull.
After all, Red Bull secured the Constructors’ World Championship, and Perez managed to retain his fourth place in the annual driver standings.
Next is the drivers’ total points standings for the year:
1: Qin Miao, 391
2: Verstappen, 382
3: Leclerc, 280
4: Perez, 266
5: Hamilton, 237
6: Sainz, 146
7: Norris, 104
8: O’Kang, 88
9: Alonso, 51
10: Bottas, 41
11: Ricardo, 30
12: Vettel, 30
13: Zhou Guanyu, 27
14: Gasly, 21
15: Magelsen, 20
16: Stroll, 14
17: Tsunoda, 9
18: Mick, 6
19: Albon, 1
20: Russell, 1
21: De Vries, 1
After this race, the rankings among the top drivers didn’t change.
Instead, there were significant changes in the rankings of drivers further back.
On one hand, Ricardo moved up to 11th behind Zhou Guanyu.
Although his points this season are the same as Vettel’s, Vettel’s best race finish this season was only P7, while Ricardo’s was P6, so Ricardo stands ahead of Vettel with the same points.
Meanwhile, Zhou Guanyu, who earned points in today’s race, actually fell one position in the driver standings since Ricardo collected four points.
Zhou Guanyu’s 13th place finish for the year far exceeded many people’s expectations, especially since Zhou Guanyu, unlike Qin Miao, entered F1 with sponsorship, leading many in the early season to label Zhou Guanyu as a pay driver.
Expectations for pay drivers are generally not high.
Yet in his first professional year, Zhou Guanyu proved to everyone that Alfa Romeo’s choice was correct, and even that Alfa Romeo hit the jackpot.
Receiving 30 million euros in sponsorship, they also gained a competitive midfield driver with great growth potential, and most importantly, a larger market behind him.
Haas looked at Zhou Guanyu’s performance and then at their own drivers Mick and Magelsen, and couldn’t help but want to slap themselves.
But there was no way around it; before the season began, nobody expected Zhou Guanyu’s performance to be this good, especially since Zhou Guanyu at the start of the season couldn’t shake off the pay driver label.
Meanwhile, the team standings are as follows:
1: Red Bull: 648
2: Mercedes: 628
3: Ferrari: 426
4: Alpine: 139
5: McLaren: 134
6: Alfa Romeo: 68
7: Aston Martin: 44
8: Toro Rosso: 30
9: Haas: 26
10: Williams: 3
It’s clear that Red Bull won the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship with a 20-point lead.
Mercedes mainly lost due to their two drivers’ retirement in the last race.
It’s truly regrettable for these two top drivers to retire, but things have come to this point; no amount of regret can remedy anything.
As for Ferrari, although they didn’t exactly head downhill in the mid-to-late season, their progress wasn’t as obvious compared to Red Bull and Mercedes, and in comparison, Ferrari seemed to regress.
It’s evident that the TD039 technical directive had quite an impact on Ferrari.
After TD039 came out, Ferrari’s performance didn’t immediately drop, but it’s clear that this technical directive hindered Ferrari’s upgrade progress in the mid-to-late season.
On the other hand, Alpine secured the fourth place in the team standings this year.
This is a huge morale boost for the entire Alpine team, especially considering that last season they placed fifth, 113 points behind McLaren.
There is only one position difference, but the points gap was despairingly large.
But this year is different; Alpine leads McLaren by 5 points on the standings.
A narrow victory.
In fact, the person Alpine should thank most for their fourth place this year isn’t themselves, but Ricardo.
One could even say that 80% of Alpine’s fourth place this year is due to McLaren’s Ricardo.
Because he genuinely took it easy on the track this season.